Possibly stretching the point a bit with the subtitle, but socialists had a good Tuesday night. In Los Angeles, Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidates won the city controller’s office and now have two city council seats.1
As the young, progressive set watched the returns roll in, it became obvious that the second-largest city in America was taking a left turn.
The race between L.A. City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell and labor organizer Hugo Soto-Martinez was leaning in the latter’s favor. And in the race for city controller, Kenneth Mejia — who secured the endorsements of an array of progressive organizations — was trouncing City Councilmember Paul Koretz.
Councilmember-elect Eunisses Hernandez, also endorsed by DSA-LA, won earlier this year and will take office in December.
One of the winners ascribed his success to the coordination between DSA and labor unions.
In New York, DSA leader Sarahana Shrestha won a seat in the state legislature by first winning the Democratic primary and then trouncing her Republican opponent in the general.2
In June, Shrestha defeated longtime Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston, in a primary to receive the Democratic nomination for the Nov. 8 ballot. She will also be running on the Working Families Party banner.
Shrestha is the Ulster County co-chair for the Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and a leader in Public Power NY, a coalition of organizations focused on promoting a clean, renewable, affordable and accessible power supply.
A native of Nepal, Shrestha became a U.S. citizen in 2019.
Two candidates endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez won state legislature seats in Queens, including Democratic Socialist Kristen Gonzales, now a state senator-elect, and new assemblyman Juan Ardila.3
Maspeth’s Juan Ardila will succeed longtime Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan when she retires at the end of next month and represent District 37, while Long Island City’s Kristen Gonzalez will head to Albany to represent the newly drawn Senate District 59.
Ardila was backed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz in the Democratic primary in June and he defeated Brent O’Leary, Johanna Carmona, and Jim Magee.
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AOC also endorsed Gonzalez in her primary battle against former Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, but Gonzalez also enjoyed the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has become a force in recent election cycles in western Queens.“All you have to do is look to the People’s Republic of Astoria, where we have a Democratic Socialist at every level of government to know it’s true,” Gonzalez said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned during this campaign, it’s that change is possible when you organize over many years.”
Yesterday we mentioned Pittsburgh’s Summer Lee, a former DSA organizer who became the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress when she won an open congressional seat after a narrow primary win,4 and two Milwaukee socialists, Darrin Madison and Ryan Clancy, who ran unopposed after winning their Democratic primaries.5
According to historian John Gurda, Madison is “almost certainly” the first Black socialist elected to the statehouse in history.
Madison said he believes his election will encourage people to “move beyond the traditional avenues of leadership.”
Members of the Socialist Party of America were the last known socialist candidates to be elected, which happened in the early 1930s, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. Many of those members switched over to the Progressive Party by the late 1930s.
Madison and Clancy will caucus with the Democratic Party but will also form a new socialist caucus, Clancy told the Journal Sentinel.
Slate has a roundup of socialist/socialist friendly wins from Tuesday,6 some of which are mentioned above and some of which aren't.
The demise of progressives may have been greatly exaggerated. During primary season, it became something akin to gospel that progressives were in retreat, as Democratic moderates rode a wave of super PAC money to a number of primary wins. But even early in the night on Nov. 8, progressives had already secured themselves a full class of newcomers—winning high-profile House races with Florida’s Maxwell Frost, Illinois’ Delia Ramirez, Texas’ Greg Casar, and Pennsylvania’s Summer Lee. In the past two cycles, progressives had four big triumphs each time: Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib were elected in 2018; Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Marie Newman, and Cori Bush in 2020. If you want to stretch out the Squad moniker for a third election cycle, we have a new Squad 2022.
…
Frost, Ramirez, Casar, and Lee all fit the demographic profile of Squads of yore. All four are nonwhite; all four are under 40. All four are champions of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, adding four formidable advocates to those top-billed progressive priorities.
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Progressives didn’t stop there. The victory of Chris Deluzio, a onetime Bernie Sanders delegate, in Pennsylvania’s 17th District, is at least as big a triumph as the aforementioned victories. PA-17 was, until recently, held by Conor Lamb, one of the furthest-right members of the Democratic House caucus. He left the seat for a doomed primary campaign against eventual Senate winner John Fetterman. Vermont’s Becca Balint, a Sanders endorsee and a champion of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, won her race as well. Jasmine Crockett, in Texas, is another progressive notable.
The writer, Alexander Sammon, concludes that “most importantly, progressives are not being blamed for the collapse of the Democratic Party nationally.” That’s probably because Democrats didn’t really collapse this time; they just got beat, and anyway it’s premature. But one can say that in a lot of locales, “socialism” is not the dirty word it once was.
In future contests, Chicago’s six-strong contingent of socialist city council members hope to add to their numbers in the city’s February 2023 elections.7
We know that socialists won elsewhere too, but we’re coming up short on stories still. They also lost in other places where they had a shot, but on the whole they did well; not a Red wave to counter the red drizzle, but well nevertheless.
Goat Girl started us up with “On All Fours,” followed by Dream Wife and “When You Gonna…” Both were new to us, and we liked them both. The latter are reminiscent of several other artists but since we liked all of them too, no harm no foul.
And that, comrades, is all we got. Be well, take care.
For what it's worth, AOC didn't seem upbeat about the results.
A musical suggestion: "The Other Side", Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy (1992).
Hi Weldon. Sorry I've been hunkered down and not really reading much. A couple non-sequiturs: Mimi Parker died the other day, sadly, which belatedly drew my attention back to her band Low. They apparently didn't like the term "slowcore" and actually did some things that wouldn't qualify for the characterization, but most of their stuff would. Worth checking out if you don't know them.
There are some weird regulatory shenanigans going on in my state involving the various licenses in my general field. Essentially, it looks like a focused effort to insert libertarian philosophy into occupational licensing, first order of business being using the national mental health crisis to justify significantly undermining training etc. standards, bolstered by bad arguments, bad science, and abetted by the field's unfortunate preoccupation with "empirically validated treatments" that they're going to pretend could be taught to/delivered by about anyone, or (I predict) a clever phone app. All of this also conveniently distracts focus from all the social/economic factors contributing, instead reframing everything as a big-state repressive regulatory system. Frankly, this is the beginning of something I've seen coming for a long time, and dearly hoped I was wrong about.
I'll let you know more when I can, but I'm very, very interested in any further information/articles your happen across focused on the many factors contributing to widespread mental health problems that aren't exclusively not enough providers. You're better informed than I am about all of that, and I'm apparently better informed than they majority of my colleagues, thanks partly to you.
So for better or worse, you're having a soon-to-be-demonstrable impact on this area, and I really appreciate it. There will be some good material coming from all of this.
More to follow over the course of the next couple weeks.